The first official day of Web Directions North is now done; and despite my bias, Dave Shea, Derek Featherstone, Maxine Sherrin, and John Allsopp all deserve our collective thanks. What started as the musings on some blogs, has evolved into a stellar conference in the very fog-heavy city Vancouver.

Lessons learned so far:

• bottled water, even if sealed, is not allowed on carry-on luggage;
• de-icing amounts to spraying gelatinous anti-freeze on planes;
• flying into Vancouver at sunrise is awe-inspiring;
• planes can land in fog so thick you can’t see the ground below you;
• there are people Microsoft that really do care;
• HomeSite is not coming back, but Dreamweaver continues to improve;
• few Web developers smoke;
• security camera footage projected on a screen makes for excellent entertainment;
• I’m “old” and am definitely a reformed Web standards criminal;
• “hijax” is the way to do Ajax;
• when Joe Clark is on, nothing is better;
• the Web’s potential is obvious to all but corporate managers;
• and, most surprisngly, jellyfish is actually really good.

Tomorrow I present with Adrian Holovaty, whom, after all these years, I finally met. He also helped me realize there is reason for optimism.